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Starting with AIX Version 7.2, the AIX operating system provides the Live Update function which eliminates downtime required when patching the AIX operating system kernel. Your application workloads are not stopped, yet they can take advantage of the new fixes immediately after the Live Update operation, without a reboot. Administrators can use the Live Update feature to install AIX interim fixes, service packs and technology levels. In a nutshell, Live Update allows AIX administrators to install AIX updates in-place, but instead of... [More]

The latest release of the VIOS provides a way to automatically backup your virtual device configuration whenever it changes. From the IBM Knowledge Center for POWER8: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/POWER8/p8hcg/p8hcg_viosbr.htm "The viosbr command automatically creates a backup, whenever there are any configuration changes. This functionality is known as the autoviosbr backup. It is triggered every hour, and checks if there are any configuration changes, or any other changes. If it detects any changes, a backup... [More]

On more than one occasion I’ve written articles and blogs on how to migrate AIX systems to a new version of the AIX operating system. You can find a list these articles (and others) here . Each of the NIM articles focuses on migrating AIX systems (which are configured as NIM clients). The approach is always the same; use a NIM master to migrate the NIM clients to the next release of AIX. What they don’t discuss is how to migrate your NIM master to a new version of the OS. This is the very first step you should take before you... [More]

When troubleshooting Fibre Channel adapter issues on AIX (or VIOS), I often use the fcstat command to assist me in the process. The command may display error numbers similar to the following: $ fcstat fcs0 Error opening device: /dev/fscsi0 errno: 00000045 The error number (errno) displayed can (in some cases) be used to identify the root cause of a problem. In the example above, the error number is 45 . This number is in hex. If we convert this to decimal, the number is 69. Now, if we look for 69 in the /usr/include/errno.h... [More]

I’ve been working with a customer recently that required a special kind of disaster recovery capability for their shared storage pool (SSP) environment. The customer had implemented a private cloud solution in their existing POWER environment. The solution consisted of an IBM SmartCloud deployment with IBM Systems Director and VMControl managing the PowerVM deployment of virtual machines (AIX partitions) across the landscape. The decision to use shared storage pools was driven by the fact that the customer was using SAN storage... [More]

I came across this strange LPM issue recently. Thought I’d share it with you. All the customers VIOS were configured with the viosecure level set to high . When the VIOS is configured with a security profile set to high , PCI or DoD , a new feature is enabled during LPM. This new feature is called “ Secure LPM ”. As a result when you initiate an LPM operation, the “Secure LPM” feature automatically enables the VIOS firewall and configures a secure (ipsec) tunnel for all LPM traffic over the network.... [More]

The first
time I ran the ’ viostat –adapter’ command I expected to find
non-zero values for kbps , tps , etc, for each vfchost adapter. However, the values were always zero, no matter
how much traffic traversed the adapters.
$ viostat
-adapter 1 10
... vadapter: Kbps tps
bkread ... [More]

I updated my
lab VIOS to the latest fix pack ( V2.2.2.1 )
this week and thought I’d try the new VIOS part command. This new command is an improved version of the existing vios_advisor tool. The major difference
between the two is the fact that the new tool is now included with VIOS code
and will be updated via new VIOS fix packs. The following link has some
information on using the command: http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/powersys/v3r1m5/index.jsp?topic=/p7hcg/part.htm This new
tool “Provides performance reports with
suggestions... [More]

Until recently, if you were
configuring a new LPAR with virtual FC adapters you couldn’t force it to log
into the SAN before an operating system (such as AIX) was installed. I’ve
written about this before (see link below). I also offered a way to work around
this issue. https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/cgaix/entry/new_hmc_commands_chnportlogin_and_lsnportlogin_login_in_virtual_fibre_channel_adapters_for_npiv_client_lpars1?lang=en As mentioned in my post, there are
new HMC commands to force a new LPAR to connect... [More]

Make sure you are monitoring file
system space on your VIOS. Why? If you run out of space in the root
file system, odd things can happen when you try to map virtual devices to
virtual adapters with mkvdev . For example, a colleague of mine was
attempting to map a new hdisk to a vhost adapter on a pair of VIOS. The VIOS
was running a recent version of code. He received the following error message
(see below). It wasn’t a very helpful message. At first I thought it was due to
the fact that he had not set the reserve_policy attribute... [More]

I was working
with a customer recently on a Power Blade that was running the Integrated
Virtualisation Manager (IVM). They’d installed a VIO partition onto the Blade
and had hoped to install a couple of AIX LPARs on the system. However they didn’t
get very far. As soon as they
attempted to NIM install the LPARs, they would get stuck at trying to ping the
NIM master from the client. Basically, the Shared Ethernet Adapter (SEA) was
not working properly and none of the LPARs could communicate with the external
network. So they asked for... [More]

Here’s a question I received recently, that relates to virtual
SCSI hdisk path priority. Hi, Chris, I use MPIO for our virtualization environment. I'd like to check which path is currently used. How can I get the result? For example: [nim:/]# lspath Enabled hdisk0 vscsi0 Enabled hdisk0 vscsi1 Enabled hdisk2 vscsi2 Enabled hdisk1 vscsi1 Enabled hdisk1 vscsi0 Enabled hdisk3 vscsi2 Enabled hdisk2 vscsi3 Enabled hdisk3 vscsi3 How can I determine vscsi0 or vscsi1 is currently carrying data
through VIOS and VIOC. Thanks a lot! By default... [More]

Recently I
had the pleasure of configuring a couple of POWER7 720s for a customer. Each
720 was to host roughly 12 LPARs each. There were two VIO servers and a NIM
server per 720. Everything
went along nicely and according to plan. In a few days we had both systems
built. My steps for building the systems were almost identical to those
described by Rob McNelly in a recent post . All four
VIO servers were running the latest VIOS code i.e. 2.2.0.10-FP-24 SP-01 . All the client LPARs were running AIX 6.1 TL6 SP3 . Each VIOS... [More]